


epiphyllum oxpetalum

by lokh



Series: contextless clips [1]
Category: Wolf's Rain
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen, M/M, Never to Be Finished, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 14:48:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14750921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokh/pseuds/lokh
Summary: There is a witch that lives in the apartment down the street, balcony filled with overgrowth.That much you can hear from just rumors, but it doesn’t take a bloodhound to sniff out the magick wafting in and out of the place, permeating, almost cloying. It’s enough to make Hige steer clear of the place, at least until his curiosity wins out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a collection of snippets from a vague idea of an au i had,, i dont think its likely ill ever develop it into a full story but i like enough of what i have that im just going to post them here 

“She says that there’s a sort of Paradise, that she can lead us there,” he says, a touch dreamily. Like a man possessed, or under a spell, and it makes Hige uneasy. But there’s no hint of a curse or foul play afoot – hell, if anything, the whole building is the purest place for _miles_. What was it Kiba had said? The flowers are protecting us?

“I’m not saying that it’s not real,” Hige starts, wary of overstepping. He darts a glance over at the rows of flowers – lilies of the valley, orchids, daisies – but Kiba does not follow his gaze, looking him head on. “But how do you know you can trust her? Or that it’s not a trick of the fey?”

He’s quiet. Hige chances a look up, then – blue eyes have gone stormy and thunderous, and it takes all that Hige has to not step back. He’s quick, cutting, barely below a shout. “ _Cheza does not lie._ ”


	2. Chapter 2

The flowers wave, follow him with their faces as he drifts past, but he pays them no mind, gaze steadfast. He hands over a box and a sheet with a blank space on it; he grunts out a gruff ‘thanks’ and he’s off as quickly as he came. The flowers wave, follow his figure as it walks out the door – the door slams shut, and the flowers wilt, displeased.

“Do they normally do that?” Hige asks, watching as the flowers sway, crestfallen. If they ever greeted him the same way, Hige couldn’t remember it. Maybe he just never noticed. Kiba does not answer – his eyes are on the glass door, on the man already far beyond it.

“That guy,” Kiba says instead, gaze unwavering as though their sheer intensity will materialise the man there. Honestly, Hige isn’t sure he’d be so surprised if he _could_. “He has strong magick.”

“He’s a _witch_?”

“No,” Kiba replies, blank. Hige squints at him. “He has magick but he’s not using it. It’s more like he’s closing himself off from it. I couldn’t get a read off him.”

Well. Hige blinks, dumbfounded. And here he’s always prided himself on his nose, though maybe this time it’s working against him. It’s night impossible to smell anything beyond the flowers. He doesn’t even know what _Kiba_ smells like, now that he thinks about it.


	3. Chapter 3

“Do you _eat_?” Hige demands, bursting into the apartment like he owns the place. Kiba scowls at him, before turning back to spritzing the plants by the window sill.

“I eat,” he says, like it’s a stupid question. Hige scoffs, shaking off his shoes.

“Uh huh. Okay, let me rephrase that: do you eat at least one whole meal a day?”

Silence.

“Oh my god, dude,” Hige moans, about a second away from prostrating himself in utter despair. “That’s like, the bare minimum. How are you even standing up right now?”

“Magick,” he says. If Kiba had been a mumbling person, then his reply would have been a prototypical mumble; alas, his words are sullen, just short of straight up _sulking_. “From the flowers. Moonlight.”

“You don’t even _eat_ the flowers?!”

Kiba looks scandalised.

“Kiba, you _cannot_ live like this. I bet you don’t sleep either – _no_ , don’t tell me. Moonlight, I know. But you _need_ to eat and sleep. How can you even think straight?”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

“I can’t take her out of the apartment,” Kiba confesses, pained. Hige suspected as much, but somehow it surprises him nonetheless. “Her scent – her magick is hidden by the flowers here. But without them she’ll be noticed immediately. It’s too big a risk.”

“I don’t get it,” Toboe says. “Are there bad people after her? How come?”

“Even I know this one, kid,” Tsume scoffs, leaning against the wall. His eyes are on the glass door to the balcony, on the streets below. “Legends say there are flowers with immense magickal properties, but they’re rare now, just like magick itself. On top of that, the flowers are supposed to be able to open up a well of pure energy, hidden till now. You could change the world, let magick flow freely through it and return it to the earth, or rebuild it entirely.”

“Or you could take it all for yourself,” Hige says, almost absently. Tsume raises a brow, but Kiba only nods, solemn.


	5. Chapter 5

“It’s a full moon tomorrow,” Kiba says, staring up at the stars, the sky. He says it in that same dreamy voice he gets whenever he talks about Cheza, the lunar flowers. Paradise.

Hige can only stare at him, his profile lit aflame by the moon’s light. It’s hard to look away, even when (embarrassed as he is) Kiba turns to look at him, smiles that small smile of his.

“The flowers bloom beautifully under the light of the full moon.”

His eyes are bright. Hige wonders if Kiba’s put a spell on him. He’s not so sure that he’d want to break it if he had.

“No spells planned for the night?” Hige asks aloud, instead, voice deceptively steady. Kiba shrugs at that, looking back at the stars, and just like that Hige is let go, finally able to tear his gaze away to look up as well.

“Not exactly.”

The scent of the flowers is still strong, but here, on the rooftop, the breeze carries it away into the night. It’s enough so that he can smell street food sizzling a street over, can smell the footprints Toboe left on the concrete path. It’s enough so that this close, Hige can smell the faint thrum of magick running through Kiba’s veins, overflowing to bursting.

“There was an alchemist, once,” Kiba starts, and it’s so sudden that Hige almost misses it. “He was able to transmute the lunar flowers into human form, on the night of the full moon. He couldn’t speak to the flowers, but he wanted to find a way into Paradise.”

Kiba’s face gives nothing away, almost preternaturally still, a marble statue in the moonlight. Hige sits up, dumbfounded.

“You’re not...”

“Sometimes, I wonder,” Kiba says, “what it’d be like. What _she’d_ be like. But I’ve always understood flowers better than people, and Cheza is Cheza, no matter what form she takes.”

And that makes Hige sag back, onto his forearms, heavy with irrational relief, but the tight coil in his gut does not loosen, remaining uncomfortably present.

“So by ‘not exactly’, you mean...?”

Kiba takes a long moment to stare up into the sky, mapping constellations and drinking it all in, as if the chance is his last. The idea does nothing to assuage Hige’s concerns.

Then Kiba sits up, dirt clinging to his jacket as he turns to look at Hige. His gaze, as always, is intent and inscrutable. Hige has a feeling that he’s going to get him into a lot of trouble down the line, but what’s life without a little excitement?

“Cheza is at her most powerful, but also her most vulnerable. Tomorrow the wards go up, but it’s also our best chance of figuring out the next step to Paradise. I couldn’t do both, when I was by myself, but,” and here, Hige swears his eyes go soft, fond and almost shy, “if it’s with you guys, I think we can do it.”

‘You guys’, Hige reminds himself sternly. That means you, the kid _and_ Mr. Stick-up-his-ass. His stupid heart squeezes anyway, because in the end he’s still one of the guys on the list.


	6. Chapter 6

“Is Paradise an actual place?” Toboe asks, chin on the back of his chair. He elaborates before Hige can give him a proper side-eye. “Like, an actual _physical_ place, I mean.”

“As opposed to?”

“What, ‘heaven’? Or ‘Paradise was inside us all along’?” Tsume’s tone is just short of mocking. Toboe pouts anyway. “Because let me tell you, if it turns out to be the latter, I’m gonna be pissed that we had to do all this running around.”


End file.
